Just starting out...

    You're better off starting out with something full auto. The m16 is a great weapon at medium to long range once you get the hang of it. But if you're new, I'd suggest using the famas. The enfield is one of the first ar's you unlock and is a decent weapon until you get something better.

    My suggestion , however, would be to try them all out as you unlock them. While people will say the famas and the ak74u are the most powerful ones .......... wjat's most imprtant is how it feels to you and how it fits with your playstyle.

    Ghost is a good perk to use in the beginning. Later on you may decide to stick with it or use something else, but until you get the feel of things, you are better off not giving the enmy advance warnings of your presence.

    As far as everything goes though ..... just experiment. dont worry about getting killed a lot, it will happen. Just pay attention to what you were doing when you die, and try not to do that any more.

    Most importantly .... learn the maps. you can do it in combat training or in a private match. But knowing where you are going and where you are at will probably be the most beneficial thing.  Once you are somewhat familiar then jump right in to ffa. Personally, I dont care and suggest just jumping in to whatever game mode you like, but there are those out there who get hissy about bad players on their team.

    As I said ..........  I'm all for jumping right in to any mode. You really cant learn how to play dom, or tdm, or whatever else by playing ffa. Ya gotta play to learn. But ffa will let you learn a little about traffic patterns and getting a feel for the weapons, while not feeling like you have to do welll to please teammates.

Ground War. Big team battles so you will always be running into enemy players so you will die alot at first, but on ground war domination k/d doesn't matter much. the more skirmishes you get into the faster you  will learn. Kind of like jumping into the deep end of a pool to learn how to swim.

Just play FFA if you're new in cod to learn the maps.

Well thats what i did when i first started to play cod (cod 4) .

Enfield, FAMAS, and Galil are all great early weapons. Like the other guy said, learning your maps is probably your best bet. I can't tell you how beneficial it is to come around a corner and already know all the possible places somebody could be sitting. You learn to scan high traffic camping spots and throw grenades into areas where skirmishes usually happen. You'll get better it will just take time. As somebody said above though, test out whatever weapons look interesting to you. You may love a gun a lot of others hate.